


Running Away

by trashwriter



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Delinquent Iwaizumi, Fluff and Angst, Getting Together, M/M, Mutual Pining, Trash Disaster Oikawa Tooru, cleaned up the 'adopting the runaway' au, originally an askbox fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2019-08-30
Packaged: 2020-09-30 20:30:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20453117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trashwriter/pseuds/trashwriter
Summary: When Oikawa Tooru brings a concussed and bleeding delinquent to his apartment he kind of expects to regret it. Instead he falls in love.





	Running Away

Tooru knows that this is stupid and dangerous.

So, so stupid. Incredibly dangerous.

That, of course, doesn’t stop him from unlocking the door to his crappy apartment, wiggling the sticking door just so, and gesturing for the kid to precede him inside.

Well, he says ‘kid’ but the guy is old enough to be out of high school, probably, and only a few years younger than Tooru if he had to guess.

“Nice place,” mumbles the guy, standing in the genkan scratching absently at the dried blood caked onto the back of his head.

Tooru snorts a bit, kicking off his shoes.

His apartment is a barren 1LDK that is neither aesthetically appealing nor particularly homey. Tooru keeps it clean-enough, so there’s not an obvious coat of dust over everything, but as a self-confessed workaholic he can admit that this is basically just a place for him to stumble back to when he gets more than a twelve-hour break from work.

“It’s more than a lot of people get,” he says philosophically. “Go on and use the shower, I have some sweats that’ll probably fit you, and I can order in takeout. I don’t know what your deal is, and I don’t really care, but you can stay here for a night. If in the morning nothing has been stolen, I’ll let you stay the week, longer, if you can prove that you’re looking for a job and not doing drugs.”

The guy has his arms crossed over his chest and his eyebrows have furrowed down into a scowl that is objectively terrifying.

“Why are you doing this?” he demands.

Even if he’s younger and shorter than Tooru he’s still obviously broader and stronger, and the bruises and dried blood make him look like a thug. But he’s also holding himself stiffly. Clearly in pain.

“Someone hit you in the back of the head with a bottle. You’ve got a concussion and nowhere to go. I’m weak to that kind of thing. Besides, if someone doesn’t wake you up every few hours you could die in your sleep.”

He says it light-heartedly enough, and it’s more of an urban legend that a medical fact, but he knows that head wounds aren’t to be messed around with. The guy had come staggering up to the back door of the community centre just as Tooru was locking up and begged to use the showers to clean up a bit.

_“Jus’ fifteen minutes and I’m out of your hair, I swear,_” he’d said, slurring slightly.

Tooru had told him it wasn’t worth the paperwork and had picked a few shards of glass out of his skull with the tweezers in the first aid kit and taken him home instead.

Watching the kid watching him with wary, cautious hope he can’t bring himself to regret the decision, even if it is patently stupid and dangerous.

“I guess I should introduce myself,” he muses, “I’m Oikawa Tooru.”

“Iwaizumi,” says the kid after a long moment. Then, even more slowly, “Thanks for this.”

Tooru gives him his best movie-star grin and says: “If you really want to thank me Iwaizumi-kun, you’ll get right into the shower. You reek.”

* * *

Tooru can feel his eyes crossing and uncrossing as sheer exhaustion makes standing upright a chore. He has to rest for a second, eyes closed and pressing his forehead against the wall, before his shaking fingers are steady enough to fumble his key into the lock and wiggle the door just-so, pushing it open and kicking it shut behind him.

The apartment is dark and quiet.

He stumbles out of his shoes and curses when he trips over his own feet and slams his shins into the lip of the genkan.

A soft creek is the only warning he gets before the hall light is flicked on and he’s cursing again as it seems to stab into the swollen, oversensitive mass of muscles and fluids that make up his eyes.

“Fucking hell, Trashykawa,” mutters the familiar figure, standing barefoot and sleep rumpled in the ratty oversized track pants that he’d claimed as his own.

He’s holding a shiny aluminum baseball bat, with a loose sort of ease in one hand. Tooru doesn’t want to think too carefully on how comfortable he seems with the thing cocked threateningly over one shoulder.

“Sorry Iwa-chan,” groans Tooru, summoning a sheepish smile with some effort. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You’re making enough noise to wake the fucking dead, so I don’t see how that’s true,” observed Iwaizumi, twirling the bat with a loose wrist movement. “What the actual fuck, Oikawa. I’ve seen three day old corpses that look and smell better than you. You haven’t been back here in a week.”

“No time,” mumbles Tooru wandering the half-way familiar route to his bedroom. “I’ve been working 26 hours shifts and sleeping in the hospital break room, went to sis’ for dinner and a shower on Thursday. Gotta get up for coaching at nine tomorrow—”

“What you need is a fucking shower and ten hours of sleep and then a day of doing nothing, shit, Oikawa!”

When the room stops spinning he’s tucked firmly under Iwaizumi’s arm and being dragged into what has become their bathroom. Lifting his arms so that the foul-mouthed former street-kid can peel his t-shirt off him and grinning at the way he wrinkles his nose in disgust, balling it up and throwing it into the hall.

Tooru kind of wants to laugh, because Iwaizumi when given a little leeway and a sharp scold about showers and proper nutrition, had cussed him out viciously but had also gone out and got a job at a local construction site building high-rise apartments.

In the next few months he’d then in turn started shopping, cooking and cleaning and then paying half the rent.

He’d become a way better adult than Tooru.

“You need to take better fucking care of yourself,” the kid says, turning the taps on the shower. “Strip and get in, you fucking stink.”

“Aww Iwa-chan,” Tooru teases, even as he obeys – unbuttoning his pants seems like a herculean effort, but they’re loose enough on the juts of his hips now that they slide free easily enough. “I didn’t know you cared.”

Iwaizumi gives him a sharp look.

Tooru doesn’t know what he sees but whatever it is it puts a black scowl on his face. Iwaizumi takes his chin in a bruising grip, and tilts Tooru’s face up, making him look into those intense, dark eyes.

“Shut the fuck up, Shittykawa, of course I fucking care. What are you even talking about? You were the only person who gave me half a fucking chance. Who treated me like a person and gave me space and time to get my shit straight. The only fucking person. My own brother didn’t do half as much for me.”

A strange look passes through Iwaizumi’s eyes and it leaves Tooru feeling more naked then the removal of his clothes could account for.

“You’re fucking important to me. And if you’re not gonna take care of yourself on your own, I’ll fucking take care of you.”

Tooru feels his heart stutter in his chest and he, very firmly, reminds the traitorous organ that Iwaizumi doesn’t mean it like _that_. Still, it’s nice to know that he’s become an important person to Iwaizumi.

“You need it, you fucking trash disaster,” he adds, pulling a clean towel out from the cupboard under the sink.

The words are crude, but the voice is soft, fond.

Tooru’s chest feels tight. It’s a little bittersweet, that fondness. He’s glad to have Iwaizumi it’s just that he sometimes wishes that he could have more of him. And he’s feeling a little too pathetic to have a conversation this serious and too tired to spend the evening crying over a cute boy.

So, he tries to deflect.

He summons up the shadow of his movie-star grin, and a low-voice with a teasing lilt, “So romantic Iwa-chan, are you trying to sweep me off my feet?”

“Shit, yeah,” answers Iwaizumi bluntly. “Is it working yet?”

Tooru nearly chokes on his own tongue forcing out a laugh that sounds forced even to his own ears.

“You’re a really comedian, Iwa-chan,” he groans, stretching.

That’s better, that sounds like he laughed despite himself at a bad joke. He can work with that.

“If you want to help me, Iwa-chan,” he says. “Help me up, because my legs don’t have any interest in the business of standing.”

Iwaizumi is scowling again but he hooks his arms under Tooru’s and drags him upright.

“You’re so much fucking work, I swear,” he mutters.

“Sorry to be a bother~~” Tooru sing-songs, stepping carefully under the warm spray while still in his underwear.

He’ll slide them off in a minute when Iwaizumi turns away. It’s not like they don’t need washing as much as the rest of him.

“Yeah, yeah,” says Iwaizumi quietly, then, louder, “I made food. If you slip and die in there before I can feed it to you I’ll be fucking pissed.”

The door doesn’t shut but Tooru hears Iwaizumi pad into the kitchen.

He sighs and leans heavily against the tile, letting the hot water stream over him and feeling a little sorry for himself.

Eventually, he knows, he’s going to have to say something, but for the moment the happiness he feels having Iwaizumi as his friend and roommate still outweighs the ache of his bruised heart and he’s determined to try and enjoy it while it lasts.

* * *

He’s rinsing the conditioner out of his hair when Iwaizumi stomps back into the bathroom, startling him. He has a mulish expression on his face and he doesn’t even pause as he marches straight into the shower and crowds Tooru up against the far wall.

“Iwaizumi—”

Tooru doesn’t get a chance to ask what he’s doing because faster than his over-worked brain can process Iwaizumi has one hand on his bare waist and another cupped around the back of his head and then he’s kissing Tooru.

Tooru wonders briefly if he’s fallen asleep in the shower, and flails briefly before his hands find purchase on the now-wet fabric of Iwaizumi’s sleep shirt.

Before he can reciprocate in any meaningful way Iwaizumi is pulling away.

“Shit,” he pants, shaking his head, but not moving out from under the spray of the shower, still crowding Tooru up against the tile. “Sorry, for doing that so suddenly.”

“Iwaizumi—”

“You piss me off, sometimes,” he says, quietly. “Mostly when I think that maybe we’re finally on the same fucking page and then you laugh it off like it’s a joke. I think I’ve been pretty clear about my feelings but it’s like no matter what I say you always think I’m not serious.”

Tooru’s heart is about to beat out of his chest. His mouth feels dry and he needs to lick his lips before he can manage to whisper: “Serious about what?”

“You’re so fucking dense I swear. What do you think? I’m serious about being fucking in love with you, you fucking moron,” Iwaizumi says, his voice firm but not quite steady. “And it’s just now occurring to me that you might’ve known that and been trying to let me off gently and if that’s the case, sorry for pushing it, but I’d prefer if you just fucking acknowledged this shit so that I can stop chasing my fucking tail.”

And Tooru has to laugh, or start crying. Admittedly the noise he makes is some combination of the two. It makes Iwaizumi wince and try to pull away with a muttered apology but Tooru clings refuses to let go of the death grip on his shirt.

“No, no, wait,” he says, breathless. “Please. I love you too.”

Iwaizumi stills abruptly, lifting his eyes to search Tooru’s face. 

“Seriously?”

His expression is filled with a familiar dose of healthy suspicion and Tooru laughs again, more honestly this time.

“Yeah,” he admits. “Yes.”

Iwaizumi hits him for that.

“Then says that in the first place! Dumbass!” he hisses. “Why have you been dodging my fucking confession!”

“So mean, Iwa-chan,” he pouts for a minute, before his lips curl up into a grin he just can’t fight.

It’s a little wry and a little helpless and it feels disgustingly honest on his face. It makes Iwaizumi’s brow unfurrow though which is a rare treat. When he’s not scowling Iwaizumi has a really nice face.

“Not everyone is as brave as you, Hajime,” he says, quietly. “What if I was just hearing what I wanted to hear? Pushing my feelings onto you? You’re…so important to me, more important than my stupid feelings. I only just found you, I didn’t want to risk losing you. What if I said something and was wrong? What if you left?”

“Idiot, you’re not gonna chase me off that easy,” Iwaizumi growls.

His grip on Tooru’s waist is tight, and Tooru hopes that there’s a bruise there in the morning. He hopes for a lot of things.

“I’m starting to get that.”

“Starting,” Iwaizumi grumbles.

Suddenly all the fear and misery he’s been anticipating is vanishing like so much mist and he can appreciate the possessive dig of Iwaizumi’s thumb into his hipbone and the thin cotton clinging wetly to every dip and curve of his muscles.

“You know what would go a long way to convincing me?” he asks, swaying forward slightly. 

Iwaizumi gives him a smirk that does interesting things to his insides.

“I’ve got a couple ideas.”

This time when they kiss Tooru winds his arms around Iwaizumi’s neck and responds with unabashed vigour.

**Author's Note:**

> and they lived happily ever after...
> 
> my favourite part of this was giving Iwaizumi a foul-mouth ngl. originally posted sometime in 2015 or '16 on my tumblr I came across it and decided to clean it up and add a better ending. hope y'all enjoy!


End file.
